It was a warm spring evening on the small college campus. The 19-year-old RA (Resident Assistant) sat at the front desk of the boys’ dorm, desperately trying to stay awake. He had the night shift this weekend. That meant he had to sit there from 11 p.m. until 5 a.m. to answer the phone and make sure there were no disturbances. Boring but necessary work, he thought. He peered out to the city’s skyline off to the east. The clock on the top of the bank building read 1:59 a.m. It was almost time to Spring Forward.
He hated Daylight’s Savings time. It was a sleep-sucking hell unleashed by Ben Franklin so many years ago. You moved the clock ahead an hour and lost an hour of sleep. While he liked “Fall Back” because he gained an hour, “Spring Forward” was nothing short of a curse. It sucked. The only blessing about it this time was that he would have one less hour to work tonight.
He looked up at the clock not the wall in the dorm office. He sighed — guess he would have to change it, too. He pulled the spare chair over to it and climbed up on it. He took the clock off the wall and moved its big hand slowly around until it read 3 a.m.
Suddenly the world got blurry and went black. He dropped the clock and fell off the chair. When he woke up on the floor, the dorm was in flames.
It was 3 a.m. — but for some reason, the world had also moved ahead an hour, too. The RA heard a beating on the door. He grabbed a rag and carefully opened the scalding hot door knob. A fireman was there and helped him hustle outside. He heard the screams as dozens of students were trapped in the flaming building. A boy jumped from the fourth floor — he was on fire and crumpled to the ground when he hit the concrete in a sickening thud. Students were making the choice between death by fire or by jumping. A fifth fire truck pulled up.
The RA ran over to the fire chief. He heard him telling another fireman than the fire had started on the fifth floor in room 513. A candle had tipped over at around 2 a.m. and lit the dorm room on fire. Smoke had killed the the boys sleeping in the room as the fire slowly licked its way down the hall, consuming the other rooms. Twenty boys died in their sleep from smoke inhalation. Then the fire began to grow.
The RA sat in horror. He watched as his dorm exploded and the screams became even loaded. Bodies were everywhere. It was what Hell must be like, he thought. The firemen were powerless. The Chief gave the call to pull back.
But one person didn’t pull back. He ran back into the flames.
The RA ran back toward the office. He covered his mouth and dodged the flames as he burst back into the door. There, on the floor was the clock. He grabbed it, took his finger and pushed the big hand back around. The clock read 1:59 a.m. And then the RA felt dizzy once again and passed out .
He woke up to find the dorm wasn’t on fire. But he knew what he had to do. He grabbed the office fire extinguisher and ran up the closest staircase. 513. He found the door to the room he remembered the Chief talking about and kicked it in.
The fire was just starting to spread. The students heard the door crash in and woke up. “CALL 911!” the RA yelled. Both boys saw the flames and ran out of the room. With flames licking at his face, the RA turned the extinguisher on them. When it was empty, he grabbed a second extinguisher and turned it on the dying fire. WHOOSH. The RA won the battle, snuffing out the last remaining flames.
The RA dropped the extinguisher and fell to his knees. The room was a loss but the fire had not spread any further. He had saved the building and everyone in it.
He walked back down the stairs and went into the office. He picked up the clock again and moved the big hand forward. He once again passed out and woke up on the floor.
A fireman patted him on the shoulder and said, “Son. Son. You OK?”
The RA lifted his head and looked up at the fireman.
“I understand you’re a hero. You saved a bunch of lives tonight. How did you know the room was on fire?”
“I just did.” The RA really could not tell the fireman the truth. “I guess you could say I just sprang forward.”
The fireman smiled and helped the boy to his feet and shook his hand. “You lost an hour. But no one lost their life. Good job.”
The RA looked up at the clock and said the only two words he could, “Thank you.”
